The Bookseller(76)

Alma continues. “Jenny forces Michael to join their games. She tries making him sing. ‘Ring Around the Rosie.’ She pulls him, que todo se derrumbe. When he cries, she . . .” Alma bites her lip. “Really, you do not remember this, se?ora? You do not remember any of this?”

I swallow hard. “Just keep telling me.”

“She slaps him,” Alma says softly. “Se?ora Andersson, mi corazón, it breaks, seeing that. Jenny slaps him and he cries louder, and she picks him up and puts him in the corner and holds his mouth closed so he does not scream. He is un ni?o peque?o, such a small boy. Los otros ni?os—so sweet, same as now—they stand there, hold hands, they do not know what to do. They come to me and tug at my skirt. They do not have much words, but I know what they try to say: Alma, do something! And I put up my hands, because what can I do? ?Y qué? That woman, she is mono, but it is none of my business. My job is to clean los ba?os and cook, not raise los ni?os.”

“Did we . . .” I say softly. “Did Mr. Andersson and I . . . did we have any idea?”

“Well, el ni?o was loco, not right in the head. Lo siento decir. And everybody knows. Se?or Andersson knows before you. He begs you to take Michael to doctor. But you say Michael is fine, just a little shy and lento, cannot do things fast like los otros ni?os. You say he comes around, in time.”

“But we didn’t know . . . that he was being . . . that she was . . .”

Alma shakes her head. “No. You do not know about that. I should tell you. I should tell you long before I did.” She lowers her eyes. “Like I say, Jenny came here before me. Me, I am the new girl. In those days, I am afraid to speak up. Afraid to lose my job.”

“But you did . . . eventually.”

“Sí. More than a year pass. Then I speak up.” Her look is grim. “And when I speak up, you fire that Jenny como un rayo, like . . .” She waves her arm, making a zigzag pattern like lightning in the sky. “Me, I am glad of it. ?Adiós!” She sets down her cup. “And then you take Michael to the doctors. See what they think.”

“What did they tell me?”

“They tell you it is your fault, se?ora.” Alma stands up. “They tell you he has a disease—autism—and they cannot cure it. And they say it is because he needs his mamá when he is small. But she is not here when he needs her.”

I can feel my face pucker into a frown. “Do you believe that, Alma? Do you believe it’s my fault?”

Alma clears my empty plate. “Se?ora, I say too much. There is work to do. I run the vacuum cleaner, now that you are up. ?Bueno?”


Okay, I tell myself. I want to close my eyes, go to sleep, and wake up at home, but I know that I won’t, not yet. Okay, this is only one person’s opinion. Granted, Alma is about as credible a witness as you could find. But still. That couldn’t be the whole story.

If it was, I reason as I rinse my coffee cup in the sink, why are Mitch and Missy just fine? If Michael is autistic because I am such a horrible mother—why, then, wouldn’t my other two children be autistic, too?

Immediately I scorn this easy response. It doesn’t work that neatly, my interior critic tells me. If it did, there would be a lot more autistic people in the world. Because there are plenty of horrible mothers.

The truth is—and I know this as I walk back to the master bedroom to dress—the truth is, there must be some element of hit-or-miss. And whatever hit Michael—Let’s be honest, Kitty, “whatever hit Michael” is your awful mothering—somehow it missed the other two. They dodged a bullet, and they will be fine.

But will they? Alma had stopped her story with the firing of Jenny, followed by Michael’s diagnosis. But I could pick up the pieces from there. I must have left Sisters’ Bookshop then. I must have left Frieda, probably quite abruptly. I’d settled in here, staying home with the children and doing my penance. And hoping, praying, that it wasn’t too late. That whatever damage I’d done to Michael could be undone. Hoping, as well, that it wouldn’t strike the other two.

In the bedroom, I glance at the bed. It’s still unmade, the sheets jumbled as if those sleeping there were restless. Perhaps we were, Lars and I. Crossing the room, I smooth the sheets and bedspread, fluff the pillows. I sense that making the bed is likely not my job, at least not on the days when Alma is here. Nonetheless, I feel compelled to do it.

Opening the closet door, I inspect the clothes in front of me, trying to select something to wear. But the clothes won’t come into focus. Instead I start seeing little snippets of my life from the past few years.

I remember some of those days. Not all days, but some of them.


My children were two and a half when I fired Jenny and determined to throw myself, body and soul, into the raising of my family. I was sure I could make amends. I could make Michael love me. I could make him be normal, be like the other two.

I decided that being outside in the yard, working with the earth, would be good for all of us. That spring we planted a vegetable garden: tiny lettuce and carrot seeds that we carefully placed in neat rows in the crumbly soil; leggy tomato plants that we bought from the garden store near my old duplex and transplanted into a plot along the back fence. I had to stop Mitch and Missy from having sword fights with the tomato stakes, but eventually we got the job done, and the tomato plants thrived. “Fresh food,” I told Lars with satisfaction when he came home from work. “Fresh food and fresh air. That will change everything.”